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Against Treating Introspection As Perception-Like Psyche, Volume 16, number 1 Against Treating Introspection as Perception-Like Abstract A perceptual theory of introspection is one that treats introspection as a species of perception or as a special case of perception. Additionally, a perceptual theory of introspection is one for which introspection shares at least some of the essential features of perception. However, I will show that there are certain essential features of perception that introspection lacks. Moreover, those features common to perception and introspection are insufficient to distinguish perception from belief. Thus, there is good reason to deny that introspection fits a perceptual model of introspection. Renee J Smith1 Associate Professor of Philosophy Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies Coastal Carolina University A perceptual theory of introspection is one that treats introspection as a species of perception or as a special case of perception. While introspection and perception are dissimilar in certain respects, a perceptual theory of introspection will be based on certain fundamental similarities between them. What I take to be an essential feature of any perceptual theory of introspection is that it takes perception to be a basic mental state, one irreducible to some other mental state. This feature rules out treating perception as a species of belief (what Dretske has called a cognitivist theory of perception) and then likening introspection to perception on the basis that it, too, is a species of belief. This latter view of introspection would be classified as a non-perceptual theory of introspection because while it does reduce introspection to perception, it goes on to reduce perception to belief. A perceptual theory of introspection, in addition to taking perception to be a basic mental state, is one for which introspection shares at least some of the essential features of perception. I will show, however, that there are certain essential features of perception that introspection lacks. In addition, those features common to perception and introspection are insufficient to distinguish perception from belief. Thus, there is good reason to deny that introspection fits a perceptual model of introspection. 1Conway SC 29528-6054 843-349-2083 [email protected] http://ww2.coastal.edu/rsmith Psyche, Volume 16, number 1 Against treating introspection Perception, in the most straightforward case, is seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, and touching; namely, it is sense perception. It is acquiring information about our surroundings via our sense organs. Certainly, when we introspect, we do not see, hear, taste, smell or touch our mental states; so, the employment of the sense organs cannot ground a perceptual theory of introspection. Other cases of perception, however, do not fit these stereotypical cases either, for example, proprioception.2 It seems that one can be (perceptually) aware that one’s leg is bent without seeing or touching it, and yet this usually counts as a case of perception. So, rather than thinking of perception as dependent on the sense organs, we might simply think of it as a means of acquiring information about our environment (including what might be called our somatic environment or our non-mental environment.) Since introspection, let us say, is directed inward, and perception seems to be directed outward, what is common to both is that we acquire information about whatever is perceived or introspected. By perceiving something, one stands in a particular relation to the thing seen. Assume that this is a causal relation between the perceptual object and the perceiver.3 So, in order to see a cat, one must be causally related to certain intrinsic properties of the cat. One acquires information about the cat (its location, color, size, and shape) in virtue of standing in this relation to a cat. If cat experiences are produced by something other than cats, then they do not count as perceptual experiences (of cats). This information is then available to be (or to enter into) the content of perceptual belief. Seeing the cat allows one to form the belief that what one sees is a cat. The ability to form perceptual beliefs will be dependent upon possessing certain concepts (e.g. the concept CAT); simply seeing the cat, standing in the perceptual relation to the cat, however, does not seem to be concept-dependent. One can be aware of the cat without being aware that it is a cat. So we should distinguish simple “seeing” (being aware of the cat) from “perception-that” (being aware that it is a cat).4 The latter, unlike the former, is concept-dependent. One could not see that 5 something is a cat unless one had the concept CAT. Additionally, in the case of simple perception, there is an associated appearance or sensation.6 The cat appears to the perceiver in some way; there is something that it is like to be 2 Also, Bach-y-Rita (Dennett, 1991, pp. 338-343) prosthetic devices, which are described as producing perception- like experiences while bypassing the (relevant) sense organs, do not fit. I am inclined to follow Dennett: This is not a case of seeing, but feeling. 3 (Grice, 1961). It will be one thing to say that the perceptual relation is a causal one and quite another to be committed to Grice’s causal theory of perception (as he takes perception to be the perception of a sense datum caused by a material object). Instead, some have emphasized the acquisition of information that occurs in perception rather than the causal relation. (See Dretske, 2000, 1981). 4 Audi (1988, p. 9) and Dretske (2000) have called this both simple seeing and non-epistemic seeing and contrasted it with epistemic seeing described below as perception-that. Crane (1988, 1992), Tye (1995, 2000), and Peacocke (1992, 2001) all endorse the view that perception has nonconceptual content. McDowell (1994) denies this. 5 For present purposes, I will assume that indeterminate concept possession (see Bealer, 1998) is sufficient for perception-that. That is, one need not know the complete analysis of a concept (or, as Bealer says, have intuitions that each true identity claim for the thing in question is true) in order to possess it. Instead, in possessing the concept CAT one need only have the ability to recognize cats, distinguish them from dogs, tables, chairs, and so forth. (Also see Dretske, 1999, 1995, esp. pp. 59-60, 138-139, 1981). 6 Macdonald (1999) denies that appearances or sensations are essential features of perception (or, she says it is possible that they are not) citing McDowell’s 1994 requirement that all experience be conceptualized. (Appearances being unconceptualized experiences, there are no appearances. It is not clear that Macdonald actually endorses this view.) This cognitivist theory of perception (see Dretske, 2000a, chapter 8) bears certain similarities, in this respect, 80 Psyche, Volume 16, number 1 Against treating introspection aware of the cat even if one is not aware that it is a cat. Simple perception, “awareness-of,” has a certain phenomenal character. Just what this phenomenal character is, or what experience has it, is a central question in philosophy. For the time being, however, we might simply describe it as what is common to both veridical and hallucinatory perceptual experience. What is common to both veridical awareness of a cat and hallucinating a cat is that it seems as if there is a cat one sees. One is having an experience of a cat even if one is not (introspectively) aware that what one is having this experience. How these experiences differ is with respect to the role of the perceptual object. In the case of veridical perception, one stands in a causal relation with a cat. When hallucinating a cat, since there is no cat, it is not the perceptual object that causes one’s cat-awareness. While hallucination (and illusion) are similar with respect to their phenomenal character, and differ with respect to the causal role of the object, we can also distinguish them in terms of the relation they bear to perceptual belief and knowledge. Hallucinating a cat may provide the material for one to come to believe what one sees is a cat, since there is no cat, one cannot know that it is a cat one sees. Therefore, while both veridical and non-veridical perception have phenomenal character and provide the basis for belief, they differ in respect to their knowledge- producing effects. What can be known of non-veridical perception is that it seems as if one sees a cat. How things seem is something that would be acquired by introspection. But is this introspective access sufficiently analogous to perception to warrant adopting a perceptual theory of introspection? There does not appear to be any immediate problem with likening introspection to perception on the basis that it, too, is a causal relation between the subject and the object of introspection. If one introspects on one’s experience of seeing a cat, we could say that the visual experience itself is the cause of one’s introspecting it. Assuming perceptual realism that in order to see a cat, the cat must exist (setting aside cases of non-veridical perception for the moment), we could say that in order to introspect a given mental state, for instance a visual experience, it seems reasonable to say that visual experience must exist.7 There does not seem, however, to be anything analogous to simple perception in introspection. That is, while one can be aware of cats and their properties,8 one cannot be aware of experiences or their properties. Introspecting a visual experience, for example, does not involve that experience appearing in any way.9 While it does seem that there is something that it to Armstrong’s 1968 theory of perception.
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